Digital communication systems utilize a myriad of modulation formats. In one commonly-used format, elements of a data signal modulate quadrature-related carrier signals. This type of modulation has a variety of names, such as phase shift keying (PSK), quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), and amplitude and phase shift keying (APSK). The information conveyed by the data signal is, of course, virtually limitless and can include voice, video, facsimile and the like. Moreover, the transmission channel carrying the modulated carriers is also not limited and, at present, may include air, wire or lightguide.
A problem in practically all communications systems is that the transmission channel is band-limited. That is, there is a finite frequency interval which can be used to convey information. This limitation arises because of system and/or device requirements. While the severity of this problem does vary from system to system, it still can be said that the ability to convey still more information in a given frequency interval would be highly desirable.
One technique to increase the information-carrying capacity of a digital system transmitting modulated quadrature-related carriers is to increase the number of permissible modulation states. An example of this technique is exemplified by the design and deployment of 64 QAM systems in lieu of 16 QAM systems in applications requiring greater capacity. The problem with this technique is that the change in the number of modulation states requires, at least, the design and development of new modulators and demodulators. This effort is often expensive and the resulting equipment, at times, can not be retrofitted into operational systems without great expense.
Another technique to increase system capacity has been to utilize single-sideband or vestigial sideband signals instead of double-sideband signals. This technique is rather simple to implement and has been routinely used in formats which modulate a single carrier signal. Unfortunately, this technique has not been used for systems utilizing quadrature-related carriers because there was no known way of intelligently decoding the received signal after filtering.